Long-term care facilities across Kentucky began receiving the COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTechon Monday.
Governor Andy Beshear said that the state’s goal is to vaccinate everyone in long-term care environments by March 1.
“If we do that, we cut off 66% of the deaths that we have been experiencing,” Beshear said. “We also reduce hospitalizations and we free up more health care capacity. That means patients who do come in to the hospital get more attention and access and we improve their health outcomes.”
The state also introduced a new vaccine dashboard at kycovid19.ky.gov where Kentuckians can learn more about the vaccine, its planned distribution stages and progress of its rollout across the state. Eighty hospitals in Kentucky will receive the Moderna-produced vaccine this week.
“This will show the total number of doses that have been shipped to the state; it will show the total number of Kentuckians who have been vaccinated; and it will show the total number of doses remaining to be deployed,” said Dr. Steven Stack, Kentucky Public Health Commissioner. “These numbers do not include the numbers that go to the long-term care facility immunization, at least not currently. Those get assigned over to CVS and Walgreens and show up in a different tracking methodology.”
Meanwhile, Kentucky recorded 1,988 newly confirmed positive COVID-19 cases on Monday, including 92 in Kenton County, 80 in Boone County, 60 in Campbell County, 8 in Grant County, and 5 in Pendleton County.
The state’s positivity rate is 8.64%.
There are currently 1,580 people hospitalized for COVID-19 across the state with 411 in intensive care units and 231 on ventilators.
-Staff report
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